April 15th, 2016

Over the span of eight weeks, seven students from J. W. Gerth Public School met with Mr. Laythorpe, a special education resource teacher, to work on a special project. Mr. Laythorpe challenged these kids, through the school’s enrichment program, to come up with a task that would involve positive change for the rest of the student body.

These students used their high-level thinking skills and started to search creative and effective ideas that they could put into action. One of the ideas they stumbled upon came from a news story about a Buddy Bench. With that, the idea was born – to get a Buddy Bench for the J. W. Gerth PS schoolyard. The group nicknamed themselves the #ChangeGroup, and asked themselves the big question, “How can we make it happen?”

Through careful consideration, the students came up with the idea of hosting a garage sale. They asked all of the J. W. Gerth PS students to bring in their old toys, books, and puzzles, upon approval from their parents. The group then collected all of the donated items and priced each at $1.

The goal of the garage sale was to raise $350, however, the #ChangeGroup was able to raise $508! The group also approached their generous School Council and asked for some funds for their proposed benches – they supplied them with another $600!

With their grand total of $1,108 raised, #ChangeGroup is not only able to buy one Buddy Bench but TWO Buddy Benches! And to make things even better, the group of seven approached the senior woodworking class at Huron Heights Secondary School to ask if they could make the benches…they gladly agreed! What a great group of Huron Huskies!

The benches should be ready for the spring and we can say for sure that the #ChangeGroup did something positive for the students and community at J. W. Gerth PS.